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Vees, Warriors receive fines and suspensions from BCHL

Punishment has been given out by the BCHL to the Penticton Vees and West Kelowna Warriors for their melee at the end of the Jan. 26 game in Penticton.

Following an announcement by the BCHL, the Vees released a statement saying that Mike Rebry will serve a five-game suspension (three for leaving the bench and two for fighting), while Cody DePourcq and Brayden Park received one game each, which will be determined by the team before the regular season ends. Rebry is eligible to return to the Vees lineup on Feb. 17 when they host the Cowichan Valley Capitals.The league also fined the Vees and Warriors an undisclosed amount.

“The Vees organization will not appeal the ruling and supports the BCHL’s decision,” said the club in a release. “Per league policy, the Vees will no longer comment on the incident.”

Prior to the suspensions being announced, Vees coach-GM Fred Harbinson decided not to comment on any possible suspensions.

Matt Berry of the Warriors received one game for leaving the bench to join the fight and one for provoking the altercation. Brennan Clark received a one-game suspension for leaving the bench. Braxton Bilous received eight games in total (three games for a gross misconduct, three for leaving the dressing room area to join the incident and two games for provoking the fight.) Shawn Hochhausen received seven games in total (three for leaving the bench, two for fighting and two for provoking the incident.)

The West Kelowna Warriors blog, The General’s Report by Jon Zacks, posted the following.

“It should be noted that this is considered a very severe incident and such behaviour is not tolerated in the BCHL,” said BCHL executive director Trevor Alto.

Speaking on behalf of Alto, Bren Mutis, director of communications for the league, said Alto used the archived feed of the pay per view broadcast to review the incident. From that he was able to identify which players had come off the bench to join the altercation.

The Junior A Supplement, which provides discipline guidelines to Western Canadian leagues through Hockey Canada, states, “players shall be deemed to have left the bench should they enter the ice surface after a whistle and get involved in an altercation before or immediately after the drop of the puck to start the new play and at the conclusion of any game when players have left the bench. sports@pentictonwesternnews.com

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